


hand in unlovable hand

by coloredink



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Codependency, Hannibal is Hannibal, M/M, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-09 00:18:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5518403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coloredink/pseuds/coloredink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hannibal put his hand over Will's and held it closer to his chest.  They had woken up like this more than once.  "Do you wish I'd die?" he asked.  "It would make your life easier."</p>
            </blockquote>





	hand in unlovable hand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PockyGhost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PockyGhost/gifts).



Hannibal woke with a jerk, his heart pounding. He stared up at the ceiling, mind still covered in the cobwebs of sleep. All the colors around him were grainy and grayscale with night. The ocean hummed against the hull of the boat. Everything around him pitched and swayed.

"I'm here," said Will, in the darkness. He had his hand over Hannibal's heart. His palm was warm and slightly damp. "It's good to know that you also have nightmares." Hannibal could hear his smirk.

He put his hand over Will's and held it closer to his chest. They had woken up like this more than once. "Do you wish I'd die?" he asked. "It would make your life easier."

Will did not answer. He put his head on Hannibal's shoulder. Hannibal closed his eyes and let the sea wash him back to sleep.

\-----

"Of course you own a house in Buenos Aires," said Will.

Will had drawn his farmhouse close around him like a nest, while Hannibal liked his spaces grand and operatic. This house, he thought, was a compromise: only two thousand square feet. It had a gourmet kitchen, a formal dining room, and a large patio in the back. The walls were painted shades of gold and melon, so it was like sunlight poured through all the rooms. Most importantly, it had air conditioning.

"This is way too big for two people," said Will.

"I suspect we'll both appreciate the space, eventually," said Hannibal.

"You think?" Will shot Hannibal a dark, amused look. "I guess we'll see." He shrugged, both hands in his pockets. The gesture wasn't as fluid as it'd once been. He'd taken too much damage to that shoulder, even with the physical therapy Hannibal had given him. It pained Hannibal a little to see.

That night, Hannibal emerged from the shower to find Will in bed, half under the covers, with a copy of _Hound of the Baskervilles_ that he must have found in the study. His hair and beard were damp; he had showered in the other bathroom. But he had come to this bed.

Hannibal had wondered. They had shared a bed as a matter of course on the boat, and in the motel and hotel rooms after, when every breath and heartbeat had seemed so tentative and everything still seemed like a dream. But there was no reason to do that here, where they were safe and planned to stay a while.

"Are you going to sleep?" Will asked. "Do you need me to turn off the light?"

"No," Hannibal said. "The light doesn't bother me."

\-----

Buenos Aires overflowed with dogs: dogs lying under the tables on restaurant patios; dogs tied up outside of shops; dogs being walked a dozen at a time by professional dog walkers; stray dogs skulking down alleys. The sidewalks, too, overflowed with evidence of all these dogs, and Hannibal had to watch where he stepped. Will's eyes followed every dog, and sometimes Hannibal had to repeat himself to be sure that Will was listening, especially when they passed one of the numerous strays with piteous expressions.

"The locals will think well of you for rescuing a stray or two," Hannibal said. "And we'll be here a while."

That got Will's attention. He looked up at Hannibal, eyebrows furrowed. "You're okay with that?"

"Every relationship needs compromises," said Hannibal. "I'll thank you to keep them out of the bedroom, and off the furniture."

Will continued frowning. "Is this a relationship?"

They had never talked about it. Hannibal didn't know if it was a mistake to talk about it now; it was that _not-knowing_ that he loved about Will, but both knowing and not-knowing carried risks. "We're in relation to one another," said Hannibal. "Therefore, we have a relationship."

"Yes, but." Will shook his head and pressed his lips together. Hannibal waited for him to continue, but he never did. When Will spoke again, several minutes later, it was to ask about the upper limit on dogs in the home.

\-----

Hannibal had the book open in his lap, but he was not reading it. He was looking at the space to the right of the entryway to the living room and thinking that it needed some art. Something small, tasteful, and in black and white. One of Rembrandt's etchings, perhaps.

He rose from his seat and made it all the way to the front door before realizing that Will had not followed him. Hannibal returned to the living room, hat in hand, where he found Will still in his armchair, apparently absorbed in whatever he was reading on his tablet. Hannibal left the house without saying anything.

When he returned some hours later, a framed print wrapped in plastic under his arm, Will was in the kitchen, chopping parsley. Steam billowed from a boiling pot on the stove.

"I'm making fettuccine," said Will. "I hope that's all right."

"Yes, of course," said Hannibal. "I'll join you in a moment." He went in the living room and hung up his purchase, a reproduction of Rembrandt's Sleeping Dog etching. It fit perfectly, as Hannibal had known it would, and he admired it for a moment before he went to wash up and join Will in the kitchen.

\-----

"You're going out," Hannibal observed. Will had been roaming around the house for a minute and a half, trying to locate his keys, which Will had left in the kitchen and Hannibal had put in the drawer of the end table by the door, where keys were supposed to go.

"To see a man about a dog," Will said. Hannibal could not tell if it was a joke. Will found his keys, put them in his pocket, and said, "I won't be long," as he stepped out the door.

Hannibal forced himself to wait four full minutes before following.

Their house was at the end of a dead end street, and so it was not terribly difficult to trace Will as far as the end of the lane. Hannibal stood there for a moment, contemplating. Perhaps he should have taken the car. But the car was more conspicuous, especially this far from the city proper, and easier to lose.

Hannibal turned right. It was growing quite warm, the humidity climbing; they were getting toward summer. Hannibal would have to talk to Will about leaving for more temperate climates. They didn't have any dogs yet; it would be easy to spend the summer months on the coast of Uruguay, as many of the locals did.

He almost walked past Will, who was standing outside the little bakery where they often purchased their bread and breakfast pastries.

"I thought you'd be here faster than this," said Will.

Hannibal didn't know what to say.

"Go home, Hannibal," said Will. "You said that we would both appreciate the space."

\-----

And then, one day, Hannibal came home and Will was not there.

He knew as soon as he opened the door that Will was gone. The house had a still, muffled quality to it. Will had turned off the air conditioning when he left. Hannibal turned it back on, left the wine in the kitchen, and went from room to room. His footsteps rang against the tile floor in the quiet house. He could smell traces of Will in the living room, and also in their shared bedroom.

Hannibal had thought that he might grow used to being without Will always at his elbow, though as he browsed the selection he had been aware of the void. If Will had been there, he would have stood aloof in the corner, pretending to read labels and being curt with the salesman. He would have made smart remarks about the cost of the wines and diminishing returns, and Hannibal would have smiled.

Hannibal returned to the kitchen, poured milk and sugar into a heavy saucepan, and added a pinch of baking soda. He brought it to a boil, letting the kitchen fill with a milky-sweet fragrance, and left it to simmer while he put away the wine.

By the time Will returned, the concoction on the stove had darkened and thickened to where Hannibal had to stir it more or less constantly, to prevent it from burning.

"Dulce de leche?" Will said, smiling.

"Yes," said Hannibal. "Would you add the vanilla, please? One teaspoon."

Will deposited his bags on the counter and fetched the vanilla. He measured out one careful teaspoon and said, "I got us some fish for dinner."

"Wonderful," said Hannibal. He had forgotten about dinner entirely.

\-----

"We didn't talk about this," Will hissed.

"I wasn't aware we needed to," Hannibal replied. "Or should I have asked you if you wanted to kill him together?"

The man had been a drifter, someone who would hardly be missed. Hannibal had been careful. The organs had mostly been too diseased: the lungs black with tar from smoking, the liver and kidneys weary and overworked from substance abuse and repeated dehydration. In the end, Hannibal had taken the tongue, which lay now on the counter between them. He had not displayed the body.

Will's voice rose a little. "You're going to get us caught!" 

"Is that what you're concerned about?" said Hannibal. "No pity for the victim?"

Will's hand rose from the counter, curled into a fist, and retreated back toward Will's side. "Of course I do," he said, low and furious. "Of course I do. But you don't, so what's the point of bringing it up?"

\-----

Will slept in the other bedroom that night.

Hannibal lay awake, listening for the sounds of Will on the other side of the wall. He didn't know what Will was doing when he wasn't in Hannibal's sight.

Perhaps he should have displayed the body. That would have drawn the attention of the authorities for sure, and then they would have to flee. It would be like those first heady days after the cliff, when they'd had nothing but each other. The swift and sudden twist of nostalgia in Hannibal's chest startled him. There was still time for that. There were other ways to draw suspicion.

He dozed off eventually, despite the absence of Will by his side, and woke when something in the room changed. Hannibal blinked his eyes open to see the door to his bedroom opened wide, someone silhouetted in the entryway. He sat up. "Will?" he began to say.

The figure in the doorway--which had to be Will, smelled like Will, moved like Will--came toward him with a flash of silver in his hand. Hannibal rolled, and a gash opened up in his pillow, spraying down feathers into the air. He tumbled out of bed, still half-tangled in the blankets. Will came down on top of him, the knife slicing through sheets and duvet. Hannibal closed his hand around both fingers and knife, and the blade bit into the webbing between his thumb and forefinger. His other hand closed around Will's face, thumb perilously close to Will's eye. Will turned his face into Hannibal's palm and bit him, hard, below the thumb.

Hannibal laughed, because Will was delightful. A spark of surprise lit through Will's eyes. Hannibal seized the opportunity to wrench his hand free from Will's teeth and punch him in the side of the head. Will went, and Hannibal went with him, half-pinning Will against the side of the bed. He closed his hand around Will's throat, thumb hovering over the artery. His other hand was still around the blade of the knife. Blood dripped down onto the linens.

"You're not trying very hard, Will," Hannibal breathed.

Will grinned back at him. "That's funny, because you're the one who's bleeding." And he kneed Hannibal in the chest.

\-----

"You do wish I'd died, then," Hannibal said.

He didn't mind it. Whatever Will might wish, this was what it was: both of them seated on the edge of the bathtub, Will fussing over him. Will did a very nice suture job for someone with no medical training.

"I wish we'd both died," Will said. "But we both lived, so this is what we get. You'll be lucky if you can use this hand tomorrow. Or next week."

"How dreadful," Hannibal said. "You'll have to stay close."

Will gave Hannibal a nonplussed look. "You like this."

"Of course I do," Hannibal replied happily.

Will snapped the lid of the first aid kit back into place and stood, to stow the kit back in its cabinet. He stayed there for a moment, his back to Hannibal. "It wouldn't make my life any easier, if you died," he said. "Simpler, maybe. But not easier."

The other hand was already starting to bruise. Hannibal smiled down at the marks Will had left on him. "We are conjoined."

"Unable to survive separation, as it turns out," Will agreed. He sighed and rubbed one hand over his face. "It gives me no pleasure to hurt you, Hannibal."

"And yet you were the one with the knife."

"Because you don't seem to understand anything else. I'm not sure I do either, really." Will sat down heavily on the edge of the tub, next to Hannibal. He looked at his hands. Hannibal looked at Will. Will appeared to be thinking. Hannibal studied his profile and wished for less harsh lighting in the bathroom.

At last, Will said, "If you kill anyone else--like that--I will go to the nearest police station and turn myself in."

Hannibal stopped breathing.

"I mean it." Will turned to face him. His expression was grim. "How would you like that? Knowing where I am, but unable to visit me. Or would you turn yourself in, just so you could be with me? Or near me, rather; it's not like they'd let us share a cell. I'd tell them not to let us."

"I'd kill you first," Hannibal snapped.

"Then you'd lose me either way," said Will. "Better not."

Hannibal's hand gathered into a fist. It hurt. "If you can make demands upon me," he said, "then I should be able to make demands upon you."

"You always have," said Will.

"Then stay," Hannibal said. "Stay forever."

Will choked out a hoarse little bark of a laugh. "How good would my threat be if I didn't? No, I'll stay; I'm staying; you have me. For better or for worse, you have me."

\---end---

**Author's Note:**

> [coloredink.tumblr.com](http://coloredink.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [sumiwrites.wordpress.com](https://sumiwrites.wordpress.com/) (if you wanna see the books I've written)


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